


Good Intentions

by Gold_On_The_Ceiling_42



Series: Stiles Winchester [5]
Category: Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Allison, BAMF Stiles, Dean gives good advice, Even if it doesn't seem like it, Hallucinations, Scott is a Good Friend, Sleep Deprivation, Stiles Stilinski is a Winchester, Stiles goes crazy, Teen Wolf Seaon 3b, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Void Stiles, for once, supernatural season 7, what even is tagging
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-08-19 23:57:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8229133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gold_On_The_Ceiling_42/pseuds/Gold_On_The_Ceiling_42
Summary: Stiles Stilinski is dead and gone, and Stiles Winchester is stuck in his place. Possessed by the nogitsune and trapped by his heritage, Stiles is forced to battle his own mind in order to save Beacon Hills, by any means necessary. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Stiles never quite thought that road would be walked by him. The sequel to Blood on my Name. It says part 5, but it's really part 2





	1. End Over End

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Thanks for reading! So, this story is a sequel to my story called "Blood on my Name," and I know it says its the fifth part of the series, but it's really the second part. It can be read right after the first story, without any of the others. Basically, this story kind of melds Supernatural and Teen Wolf. Stiles is a hunter, and that changes how he gets through season 3b ever so slightly. This story takes place in conjunction with 3b, so I recommend refreshing your memory of it to get all the context. Also this chapter flashes forward through the first two episodes. Enjoy!

Ch. 1

End Over End

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Okay, fine. Stiles could get behind that. He’d seen it firsthand. Even from afar, it had been pretty hard to miss his brothers dragging themselves there, all with the guise of ‘good intentions.’ His brothers, yes, but never him.

Never him.

This, though, this was hell.

This was locked-in-your-own-body hell. And it wasn’t like demon possession, where the victim was asleep for most of it, oh no. No, if only it were that easy. No, Stiles was awake. For all of it. The demon hadn’t let him sleep before it had made itself known, it was unlikely to change that now. Stiles had been foolish to think otherwise. And he didn’t just see it. He felt it, too. He felt _everything._ It wasn’t his body killing people and playing these sick games, it was him, too.

This wasn’t just hell. This was the-blood-is-on-your-hands-and-you-felt-yourself-wash-it-off hell. This was a nightmare from which there is no waking up, because the demon hadn’t let him sleep in 48 _fucking_ hours! Ever since the hospital!

And it had been the best intentions, too.

Stiles would like to say that it was fear and the urgency of the situation that moved him to drown himself in a pool of ice, but that’s not the truth. He was calm the whole time. He was level headed. He was thinking clearly, clearer than the water that killed him. He had just wanted to save his dad, save Beacon Hills.

And here he was. In hell.

It really was like Bobby always said. “Family don’t end with blood...” well, his blood is frozen and sluggish, his body is failing around him, his organs are screaming for sleep and his hands are acting of their own accord. And there’s a fox who narrates the whole wonderful experience for him.

“Now, Stiles, now we’re setting up a decoy trap in the woods so the real tripwire won’t be noticed. I’m predicting my unlucky victim will be the coach but we’ll have to see...”

Stiles tried to squeeze his eyes shut among the familiar forest landscape but his eyes acted of their own accord. The nemeton was a few yards off. He could feel it, down to his bones, and it made him want to cut all 206 of them out of his body.

His blood may be frozen, but it was Winchester blood, through and through. Stiles wanted to slap whoever would consider that a blessing. Winchesters never seem to be pinned down, but there is one place they are bound to end up eventually.

Hell.

And here we are.

But maybe Stiles is getting a little ahead of himself.

It goes like this.

 

Alexander died of a single gunshot wound at a spectacular sunset, and the next 24 hours were certainly strange. Stiles blew his cover, alienated his friends, unmasked his brothers to a pack of werewolves, somehow got on Chris Argent’s good side, gained all of his friends back, and defeated a pack of demons. Frankly, it was exhausting. After that, and after he had settled affairs with Scott, his brothers, Allison, and whoever the hell else had a problem, after that, Stiles had gone to sleep. And then the weird dreams started. Dreams where he was at the nemeton with flashing lights all around him, and a branch reached out to wrap around his wrist and drag him down. Dreams where he felt something sneak over his shoulder, only when he turned around, nothing was there. And finally, the worst dream of them all. He and Scott were walking through the woods, a vivid imitation of what had happened hours earlier, and Stiles could have sworn on whatever pagan god you pleased that it was real. But he had to be sure. So he counted his fingers.

_Eleven. Twelve._

And Stiles woke up screaming.

The day after Alexander, a sleep-denied Stiles left the house only to find Allison standing in front of him, skin pale, eyes gaunt, and unfocused. Even so, she tilted her head to the side and analyzed him with disturbing accuracy. Stiles winced as he felt all of his emotions rise to the surface and lay themselves bare, exposed for her to comb through. Instead of calling him out on his anxiety and worry and dread, however, Allison merely smiled softly, and the creases in her forehead abated slightly. She almost looked.... Relieved.

“Stiles.” she said softly in greeting, running a hand up and down her messenger bag in slight agitation.

“Allison.” he replied. Despite their newly discovered common hobby, he and Allison hadn’t talked much. Stiles suspected it had to do less with their relationship, and more with the fact that the both of them and Scott were probably dealing with weird side effects of the nemeton-sacrifice-thing. He certainly was, and Allison didn’t exactly look great. But he said nothing of the sort, sensing that, like him, they each wanted to triumph over it alone. Instead, he asked, “want a ride to school?” and she nodded and accepted.

The two of them clamored into Stiles’ jeep, and once settled, Allison took a deep breath and turned toward him. His eyes were on the road but out of the corner of his eye he could make out her expression of heartbreak and fear. “Stiles.” she murmured. “You have to promise me something.”

After that conversation, Stiles went to school, and Stiles told Scott about his dream, and carried on.

Two weeks passed since Alexander, three since the Darach, and in those two weeks, Stiles felt foreboding creep up on him. His bad dreams didn’t go away, if anything, they got worse. His sleep was being haunted by images of Alexander’s face melting off, of Stiles’ own hands drenched in blood, of Scott, Lydia, Allison, Isaac, Derek being shot in the chest, with his own hand on the trigger. Of a faceless voice laughing in the background of his own head, taunting him just out of sight. Walking in the school barefoot at night, only to run into the nemeton, glaring lights aimed at his head as he screamed to wake up. The nemeton lurked around every corner in his dreams, and that was only the ones he knew were dreams.

Too often, Stiles would find himself in school, in class, or at home organizing his hunting gear without remembering how he got there, only to find himself screaming awake. It had felt so real, too. The lines were beginning to blur. He would doze off in class and wake up startled, only for Scott to assure him that he had been awake the whole time. Sometimes, his notebook would be covered in his own handwriting, telling himself to wake up.

The first time this happened was the Friday after Alexander. That Sunday, like he had promised, Stiles called his brothers. The conversation went a little something like this:

“Stiles.” Dean answered, but his voice sounded flat. “Everything ok?”

“I’m... I’m not sure.” Stiles began, and he winced upon hearing how shaky and weak his own voice sounded.

“Stiles, what’s wrong?” Dean asked, alarmed. “There aren’t any more demons, are there?”

“No, nothing like that. I....” Stiles took a deep breath. “I told you when you were here that I wasn’t sleeping much. It’s getting worse. And not only that, but I’m having horrible dreams. Dreams that feel so real, even when I scream myself awake, I’m not sure I’m out of them. And sometimes I’m not. It’s been happening during the day, too.”

“Stiles, I’m here for you, man.” Dean said, and Stiles flinched, because that had been what Dean had said in his dream the previous night. Right before Dean had slit his throat. “But I got to be honest, maybe you should talk to your dad. Or a doctor. This sounds serious, but not supernatural.”

“Dean, it started the day after we repowered the nemeton!” Stiles protested. “That is not a coincidence.”

“Hey.” Dean said soothingly. “I hear you. Look, you’re worried, I understand, you’re trying to make sense of this the only way you can. You’re right, the timing is fishy. Look, talk to your dad, talk to Scott’s mom, Sam and I will try to look into it after we deal with Cas.”

“Cas?” Stiles asked. “What’s wrong with Cas?”

“Turns out Cas was lying to us for months and wants to open purgatory with Crowley.” Dean said nonchalantly, but Stiles could hear the hurt behind it. “But we’ll deal with it. Don’t worry about it, get some rest. As for the vivid dreams, the not knowing if you’re awake or not? Dad taught me a trick, supposedly it also works if you’re caught by a djinn. Count your fingers. In dreams, you have extra fingers. If you have ten fingers, you’re awake.”

“I think I already knew that...” Stiles mumbled, thinking back to the first bad dream, with Scott in the woods a week prior.

“Smartass.” Dean grumbled fondly. “Well, try this on for size: you can’t read in dreams.”

“Really?” Stiles asked, for once surprised. Huh.

“Yes, really.” Dean taunted. “Sam’s visions being the remarkable exception.”

Stiles frowned thoughtfully. “You know, I never really thought about it, but Sam’s attention to detail in those is really kind of bizarre. But Dean, how do you know this? Why did John teach you to count your fingers?”

Dean was silent for a moment, and Stiles wondered if he had crossed a line. The silence over the phone was taut and heavy, and only released once Dean spoke again.

“Stiles.... The things we hunt like to mess with our heads. It’s helpful to know what is and isn’t real, is all.”

“Dean.” Stiles said firmly. He didn’t want to press, not now, but he could feel the truth lurking behind his brother’s empty words. “Come on. Tell me the real reason.”

“Really?” Dean asked, not unkindly, but not nicely, either. The pressure he was facing with Cas and Crowley was beginning to bleed through. “You really want to know the reason? Cause it’s not going to make you feel better. Here’s why I don’t think your problem is supernatural, Stiles. The things we hunt like to mess with our heads and it works.” Stiles blanched, but Dean couldn’t see that over the phone, and he kept talking. “Let me take a wild guess. You’re dreaming about hurting your friends. You dream about their bodies at your feet, your blood on their hands. That they’re dead, and it’s your fault. I bet most of those dreams take place in Derek’s loft. I bet most of those dreams have you holding the Colt. Am I right, Stiles?”

“Y-yeah.” Stiles said with surprise. “How’d you know?”

“How’d I know?” Dean asked incredulously, almost offended. “Because I go through the exact same thing! So does Sam! Because at night my head goes through a rotation of being back in Hell, watching Dad get possessed by Yellow Eyes, watching Sam tumble into the cage, and coming back to Beacon Hills for your funeral because I wasn’t fast enough to save you!”

“Dean...” Stiles began, alarmed at the emotion rolling from Dean’s voice. He hadn’t been expecting this.

But Dean wasn’t done. “Our whole life is a nightmare, Stiles!” he roared. “You think that’s just going to go away when we’re asleep? It sucks but that’s what hunting does to you, and you find a way to deal. So yeah, when I see you ripped apart by a pack of wolves for the eleven millionth time, I count my fingers and am more than happy to wake up in a world where I can actually do something about the monsters.” Dean stopped now, breathing heavily, and Stiles didn’t dare say a word. “Look,” Dean began again, softer now. “In the span of two weeks you died and trusted your very dangerous friends with a secret you had been repressing for years. Under duress, I might add. It’s not going to go away like that. You’re worried about the side effects of your freaky sacrifice, you’re worried about what your friends think of you, you’re worried about accidentally hurting them. Those feelings get transported into your dreams. There’s nothing supernatural about it. But Stiles, the more you talk about it, the more you confront your fears about your new situation, the more it’ll probably go away. And Sam or I are a phone call away.”

“Dean.... thank you.” Stiles said softly, at a loss for any other words, beginning to feel hopeful.

“Anytime.” Dean said. “Call me if anything changes. You’re going to be fine, Stiles. Now go to sleep.”

Against his brother’s wishes, Stiles hit the books, searching for any creature dream-related. Pouring over his books, it took him about an hour to realize that the words on the pages weren’t making any sense, weren’t actually words at all, just a bunch of jumbled letters. Horrified, Stiles flipped through every page of the book, desperate for some of it to be clear, but every page was the same mumble of jumbled letters. Frantic, Stiles reached for his Calculus textbook, only to find the same horror. Paragraphs of explanations were alphabetic jambalaya, and derivatives and formulas were full of senseless symbols that did not even resemble numbers and variables. Even the graphs were wrong, lines twisted into unrecognizable, meaningless shapes. Stiles shut both books loudly, closing his eyes and leaning forward, trying to calm himself down by listening to his breathing. It wasn’t working. Dean said you couldn’t read in dreams. But he wasn’t dreaming, was he? _Was he?_

The next morning, Monday, one week after Alexander, Stiles screamed himself awake and went to school, trying to subtly deal with the fact that words were slipping through his fingers. He dozed off in Art class and apologized to the teacher, only for her to assure him that he had been perfectly attentive. He ran his nightmares through his head, and began to notice things during the day. One, there was a new girl in his history class, who was pretty cute but obviously hiding something. It was a shame, Scott seemed to take an interest in her. Two, Scott was acting weird. He was hiding it well, but Stiles was a master at detecting. Scott’s palms were weirdly red sometimes, like they had been hurriedly washed of blood, and dried blood was more and more frequently being caked under his fingernails. And every chance he got, he checked his reflection, as if making sure his eyes weren’t glowing red. Three: Allison was acting weird, too. She was irritable, and twitchy, and her hands were shaking more often than not. Her eyes would occasionally dart around the room, looking for exits, like a trapped animal. And her pupils were blown wide, as if she were trying to see through the dark, not standing in California sunlight. She looked much worse for wear than when Stiles had taken her to school. Stiles noticed all of this on Monday and confirmed his suspicions on Tuesday. Whatever had happened to him, Scott, and Allison two weeks ago was beginning to affect them seriously, and it looked like both of Stiles’ friends were suffering as much as he was. Maybe it was time to stop facing it alone.

Stiles ment to talk to them, he really did. But on Wednesday, he started losing time.

It was little things at first.. Stiles would be eating a sandwich in the kitchen, then standing in his bedroom five minutes later without any memory of walking up the stairs. Stiles would be suffering through his homework only to find himself seconds later reading one of the lore books Sam had given him, strange symbols doodled on the margin in his handwriting. Each instant of lost time was five minutes or less, but it built up enough over the short span of a few days that Stiles was beginning to grow worried. When he went to bed at night, he was afraid of tormenting nightmares, yes, but also the fear that his body might move of its own volition. He spent class the next day trying to read the same lore book he had found himself with, looking for clues, but drawing a blank at the swimming words. A familiar sense of dread was creeping in his gut, and he was meaning to talk to Scott about it, or his brothers....

.....But Scott beat him to the punch. After suffering through Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with little sleep, noticing his blackouts growing longer and more frequent, words being legible less and less often, Stiles called his brothers on Sunday and got a voicemail. All 27 times. The following day, that Monday, Lydia finally corralled him, Allison, and Scott together to confront their issues, but not before Stiles had a dream that his entire Econ class was speaking to him in sign language. After a brief and irritable discussion at lunch, it turned out Scott was afraid to turn, Allison was seeing apparitions of Kate, and Isaac was fairly certain they were all going crazy.

Isaac seemed to be, for once, the only sane one.

Then that Kira girl came over to their table, the one who was obviously hiding something, and started spouting information about Bardo, and while she was talking, everyone was subtly glancing at Stiles to see if this was true. When she walked away, they all leaned forward to discuss.

“She says we’re going to die.” Allison said with mortification.

“Stiles, does anything she said sound familiar?” Lydia implored.

Stiles frowned, his sluggish brain doing its best to ponder. “Everything Kira described has been happening to us,” he began. “But I’ve got two brothers who were raised from the dead, and they’ve never experienced this. Then again, that was Judeo-Christian magic, not Druish magic. I don’t think we can base our experiences off of Sam and Dean’s. So yes, Kira could be right, and we could die. Again.”

“And that part about Kate being a demon?” Allison asked.

Stiles shook his head. “The word you’re looking for is vengeful spirit, but it doesn’t actually matter. Kate is entirely in your imagination, just like my nightmares.” But just to be sure, he counted his fingers. Ten, for now.

When he and Scott went to Deaton’s later that day, Stiles’ horror in finding out there was a door open in his mind was only quelled slightly by the anti-possession symbol inked into his chest. Stiles meant to call his brothers, or Bobby, and tell them that something was wrong with him and he didn’t know how to fix it, had no freaking clue, he really did...

. ....But then his dad approached him about an old case, some family crashing into the woods on the night of a full moon eight years ago. And Stiles, desperate for some normalcy, desperate for something to focus on that wasn’t nightmares of him murdering his friends, took the case. And he and Scott were once again going into the woods looking for a dead body, only now they were both a little worse for the wear. Stiles felt like an open wound, like the door ajar in his head or whatever the fuck was happening was an invitation for any one of the powerful enemies his family has made to come and seek revenge. But nothing happened. Until Malia the coyote appeared in the woods, and Scott chased after her. Left behind, Stiles searched the car wreck, looking for anything else of use, when suddenly he wasn’t at the car wreck, he was crashing into Scott somewhere else in the woods. He had lost time again, only this time he had taken off running.

The thought chilled Stiles to the core. He was definitely awake during his blackouts, then. This was proof. Everything earlier could have been sleepwalking, even the writing in the notebook, but Scott had said Stiles was actively pursuing him, had tactfully looped around to meet up with him, had been shouting his name. He had to have been conscious to do that, and Stiles grew worried. If he could interact with other people while blacked out, could he accidentally hurt them?

His sleep that night was fitful and miserable, wracked with guilt and fear. The next morning, the hunt for Malia continued, as did the hope that Scott, Stiles, and Allison would snap out of it. He could see how worried Isaac and Lydia were, how they glanced at eachother with heavy concern when they thought he wasn’t looking. Kira seemed worried too, especially after the panic attack he had in History and in spite of Malia attacking her at lunch, and Stiles found it nice of her. He even nudged Scott to go talk to her. Heck, she might be hiding things, but then again, so was he.

A fact he was reminded of brutally upon the reappearance of Ethan and Aiden. Ethan and Aiden, who didn’t know that Stiles was a hunter, something he was grateful of. When they pounced on Scott in Derek’s loft, beating him into submission, trying to get him to transform, Stiles had instinctively grabbed Lydia and backed into a corner, but he couldn’t find it in himself to look away. Stiles watched, mesmerized, as Scott’s resolve weakened, as his blood was spilt, running off of Derek’s table and on to the floor, a river of rubies. It was almost beautiful.

_He deserves it._

What? No. Stiles shook his head, clearing it, horrified that the thought had surfaced, wondering where it had come from. Scott didn’t deserve this, no one deserved this... actually, this should probably be stopped.

“You help too much.” Ethan told Aiden as he dragged back his brother’s fist, and Stiles worried that he had helped too little, that he should have broken up the fight sooner.

By the time they were ready to hunt Malia, Stiles was frazzled and irritable and his brain was fried. The drive to the woods had been stressful due to not being able to read street signs, and the total number of hours he had slept since Sunday was probably less than 5. Allison’s hands were shaky, Isaac and Lydia were laden with worry, Scott was afraid to do the one thing that would ensure their success, and at this point, Dean’s voicemail inbox was full. Yeah, this was going to end well.

And Stiles was spot on. Lydia’s foot got caught in the one trap Stiles knew nothing about, and for the first time in years, he felt truly useless. But then he heard Sam’s voice in his head, a memory about his older brother explaining springs and gears, and, taking a chance, Stiles actually saved Lydia from getting her leg chopped off. And Allison made the shot. And Scott roared. And they saved Malia, and Stiles could read the rearview mirror.

And Stiles, giddy from the success, made a mistake. Convinced that the door in his mind was shut, convinced that all of his problems over the past two weeks were entirely his tortured brain and not something more sinister, desperate to believe that everything was finally over, Stiles made a very big mistake. He began to relax.

Which is of course when everything went wrong.


	2. The Deepest Blues Are Black

Ch. 2

The Deepest Blues Are Black

Everything didn’t go wrong at first. The night after rescuing Malia, October 28th, Stiles slept soundly and dreamlessly for the first time since the appearance of the Darach. With Stiles’ brain on an appropriate amount of sleep, he was finally able to regain his whirring, multitasking mind, which settled on puzzling over his brothers’ lack of contact, and whatever problem they were having with Castiel. Of course, the other part of his brain that was sick of worrying about unsettling things was set to the task of figuring out what to do during Mischief Night. Almost immediately, the perfect idea dropped into his head, and Stiles couldn’t help the sneaking grin that spread across his face as he drove to school. School that day, much to his relief, was steadily boring, only disturbed by Stiles’ quiet, ever-present worry about his brothers. There were no panic attacks, no not-quite-dreams during class, no freaking out. Stiles couldn’t have been happier, and it bled into the entire pack. Scott was clapping people heartily on the shoulder more than usual, Allison was beaming widely instead of her usual demure demeanor, Isaac wasn’t scowling so often, even Lydia was being nicer to everyone.

“Hey,” Allison said, ambushing Scott and Stiles as they were leaving history, Scott not-so-subtly watching Kira as she drifted away from them. “Are you guys alright?”

“Yeah.” Scott said as Stiles nodded his head. “Yeah, we’re alright. I haven’t had any trouble transforming, and Stiles didn’t have any panic attacks or weird dreams.”

Allison smiled and relaxed against the wall, as easygoing as Stiles had ever seen her as she watched them fish their books out of their lockers. “Is it really over?” she dared ask.

“Looks like.” Scott said happily, and he and Allison shared a smile that warmed Stiles’ heart. They were okay. They were all okay.

“Stiles,” Allison began, looking past Scott to make eye contact with him. “What time are you coming over?”

Scott’s brow furrowed in confusion, but Stiles, absorbed in hunting down his blue highlighter deep within the recesses of his locker, missed it. “Uh.... 8?” he said, searching haphazardly.. _Where did I put the damn thing?_ “Lydia’s coming over to help me study for Econ at around 6, so yeah, we should be done by 8.”

“What’s at eight?” a new voice said, and Stiles looked up to see Isaac, newly materialized and hovering by Allison’s shoulder. _Subtle...._

Grinning smugly, and fully embracing the approach of Mischief Night, Stiles leveled a challenging glare at Isaac and said, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Scott stifled a laugh as Isaac nearly slid off the wall he was leaning on, gazing at Stiles in horror.

Allison scoffed. “Stiles and I are _training_.” she said patronizingly. “Honestly, you two...” Shaking her head with a smile, Allison peeled herself off of the wall and drifted away, grabbing Lydia’s wrist as she headed towards the cafeteria. Isaac stared after her with a none-too-subtle look of awe.

“Alright, Stiles, I’m going to head to lunch.” Scott said, clapping him on the back as he shut his locker with a _thunk!_ “Isaac, do you need a ride home?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.” Isaac said, and then it was just him and Stiles, who was still rifling through his locker. “What are you even looking for?”

“My blue highlighter.” Stiles mumbled.

“Oh, um.....” Isaac began sheepishly, and Stiles stopped his search to shoot Isaac an inquisitive look. “I- uh, I may have borrowed it from Scott. And I may have accidentally broken it. Sorry.”

Stiles shut his locker with an angry _thwack!_ and faced Isaac, crossing his arms and staring him down. “Remind me why we keep you around, Isaac.” he said, and Isaac had the decency to look guilty.

“I’m sorry.” Isaac said again, looking crestfallen.

“You owe me a new highlighter.” Stiles said, and he marched away towards lunch, Isaac carefully trailing after him.

 

8 p.m. that night found Stiles at the Argent’s apartment, standing shoulder to shoulder with Allison while Chris glowered at the pair of them behind his desk. On his desk were a vast assortment of guns and knives, and behind Stiles and Allison was a closed door with two targets nailed to it at eye-level height. In his right hand, Chris held a stopwatch which he brandished threateningly.

“Pick a gun.” he said. “Take it apart, put it back together, put it down, take a knife, and throw it at the target behind you. I’ll be timing you. Ready.... GO!”

Stiles grasped the first gun closest to him, a handheld similar to the one Sam always carried. Smirking, he dismantled it with ease, keeping track of all the little parts and screws, before reassembling it in a flurry of fingers. He then picked up a knife, one of Allison’s ring daggers, and turned and threw it the way Dean had taught him. Stiles hit his target’s bull’s-eye. Allison hit hers a second later.

Chris stopped the watch with a sigh. “Allison has the better form, but Stiles has the better time. Again.”

Stiles, comfortable with the task, let his mind wander as he over and over again assembled guns and threw knives. It had been Chris’ idea, training together, but he had been reluctant to implement it until he knew Stiles and Allison were in their right minds. Since this was the first day of that blessed occurrence, this was also the first meeting. _And already I’m regretting it._ Stiles thought, as his finger got painfully pinched in his gun.

“Stiles has the better form, but Allison has the better time. Again.”

 

12:15 that night found Stiles and Scott sneaking into Coach’s office, moonlight guiding their way as they unbolted everything they could find and placed the screws in a cheerfully wrapped present, cackling all the while.

“This idea is brilliant, Stiles!” Scott commended as he attacked Coach’s chair with a screwdriver. “How’d you come up with it?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.” Stiles said contently as he pulled out the nails hanging Coach’s pictures from the wall. “It just kind of dropped into my head, but right away I knew it was the right one.”

“Okay, then.” Scott huffed as he stood up, the chair now a puddle of parts and plastic. He nudged it with his foot to make sure everything had been unbolted. “Well, I’m done with the chair, I think if we try really hard, we can unhook something from the des-” Scott looked up from the floor and he paused, concerned. “Stiles, what are you doing?”

Stiles’ hand was wrapped around a particularly stubborn nail clinging to the wall. “What does it look like? I’m pulling out nails.”

“With your bare hands?” Scott asked, a tad disbelievingly. His head titled to the side as he analyzed Stiles’ unblemished hands.

“Well, yeah.” Stiles said, not seeing the problem.

“Stiles, those things are in pretty deep.” Scott said, concerned. “ _I_ could probably pull them out. But not a human, not without cutting yourself, at least.”

A flutter of worry flickered through his heart, but Stiles refused to acknowledge it. Instead, he shrugged. “I guess I’m just stronger than I realize.” he said instead. “Hunting has a habit of building muscle. I probably am stronger than the average 17-year-old.”

Scott frowned thoughtfully, but had no desire to dig deeper. “Sounds plausible, I guess. About this desk....”

Stiles remained undisturbed, and as he collapsed into bed at 1:00 a.m, and exhausted by both the training and the prank-pulling, he expected another victorious night of dreamless sleep.

 

Seven hours later, he woke up screaming. Holding his pounding head in his hands, Stiles shuddered as he remembered the final, terrible dream that had woken him.

_He was running in the woods, running after Malia. Lydia was running behind him, screaming frantically, waving her arms in a desperate attempt for his attention, but her words were garbled and indistinguishable from white noise. The sky above him was black, blacker than demon eyes, blacker than Scott’s wounded blood, blacker than night itself. He was finally gaining on Malia, and he put forth a final burst of speed- only to have a sudden, sharp pain burst through his heart. Gasping, he looked down and saw an inky stain on his chest, a stain he knew was blood. Frenzied by the horrible agony surging through him, he clawed his shirt open, and saw a single bullet hole where his heart used to be, pulsing out black blood in time to Lydia’s frantic screams. As the haze of pain threatened to pull him under, Stiles had one last piercing thought, a thought he had no proof for but instantly knew to be true._

_Allison had shot him._

Stiles woke up screaming, clawing at his chest frantically, panting shallow, panicked breaths, tangling himself in his blankets, thrashing and lashing until finally, his breathing evened and he began to relax. He counted his fingers and stooped in relief, his head bowing down as the exhaustion from his freak-out overtook he looked at his unblemished shirt and took a deep breath.

Which is when he saw it. An inky-black stain, blooming right over his heart.

Stiles’ breath hitched as panic overtook him once again, and he was scratching and clawing at his shirt with as much fervor as he had had in his dream. Once it was off, and tossed to a forgotten corner of his floor, Stiles closed his eyes in fear and placed his hand over his heart, feeling for a bullet wound, but found nothing except smooth skin and a thin, wet substance that was definitely not blood. Peering open one of his eyes cautiously, Stiles looked at the inky-black substance seeping through his fingers..... No, not inky-black. Ink. Stiles’ heart was covered in ink. But that meant....

Stiles’ eyes widened in horror, his mouth open in a silent scream, as he removed his hand from his heart and saw a runny, misshapen, watered down image that was once his anti-possession tattoo. At this point, half of his chest was covered in dripping ink, and it looked- well, it looked like it had _melted_ off of him. Stiles was trapped in a stare, as with each passing second, more and more of the symbol erased, and more and more ink was soaking his skin.

Eventually, Stiles mustered enough sense to reach for his cell phone on the bedside table. He pressed ‘1’, and let it ring.

_This is Dean Winchester, leave your name, number, and nightmare at the tone. *BEEP*_

Stiles brought the phone to his ear with a shaky hand, staring at the wall across from him blankly. “Dean....”he croaked. “Something’s...uh.... Something’s happening. Something bad. I know you’re busy with Cas, okay, I _know...._ But my dreams are getting worse again. I can’t- I can’t- your tricks aren’t working and I can’t. And I just woke up and my anti-possession tattoo _melted off my body._ Call me back. Please.”

Stiles’ phone rolled out of his hand and on to the floor, his eyes still staring blankly at the wall across from him. It was this position that his father found him in, 30 minutes later.

 

Stiles didn’t say anything about his tattoo at school that day. For one, there were actually bigger things to worry about. But his other reason was much more worrying. Stiles was losing sleep, and losing time.... He didn’t want to lose his mind, too. His skin burned where his tattoo should be, but he didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to show it to Scott, on the off chance that it was actually still there. Seeing his anti-possession tattoo melt off was, believably, less weird than _imagining_ his anti-possession tattoo melt off., and Stiles wasn’t sure which one was real. It was Schrodinger's sanity. As long as he didn’t look, Stiles could pretend he was sane.It scared him to near death, but Stiles at this point wasn’t, couldn’t be sure what was real.

He was pretty sure that school day was real, though, insane as it was. The news broke in the morning that William Barrow, mass murderer extraordinaire, was on the loose. The doctors were frantic, the police were searching the entire town, but Stiles wasn’t sure why they bothered. He would come to the high school. Stiles knew, just as surely as he knew something was wrong to him, a disease pumping through his blood. Barrow would come to the school, chase the children with glowing eyes, and Stiles, human extraordinaire, would have to stop him. If he was sane enough.

“We have to find him.” Scott said, and Stiles couldn’t help but be proud of how everyone, (even the twins, which was a whole new level of weird Stiles would get to in a second) agreed immediately.

The hallways were empty as Stiles, Allison, Lydia, Isaac, Scott, and the twins stalked through them, something finally going right as Stiles worked on a plan.

The hunt for Barrow started off well enough. Allison was freaking out, Isaac was freaking out, Lydia was hearing buzzing noises, but Stiles had his head screwed on enough to construct a game plan for the search: sneak Allison out of the school so she can read the bestiary, send the werewolves into the basement, guard Lydia while she attempts to sense Barrow, and keep his dad at the school as long as humanly possible. He calls his brothers again. Voicemail.

The first snag was what Stiles feared would happen the moment his nightmares returned. He lost time. One moment, he separated from Allison and company to implement their plan. He was running towards the science hallway, a lockpick in his pocket, intent on searching the empty classrooms for Barrow. The next thing Stiles knew, he was running into Scott in the same hallway, going in the opposite direction, chalk lightly dusting his fingers (what the hell). Stiles looked around, disoriented, and saw the hallway full of students. He had been out for at least 20 minutes, enough time for the period to end. He tried not to freak out as he realized that he had had the longest blackout ever. Scott, bless him, noticed anyway.

“Stiles?” Scott asked, an arm slung around his shoulders in a second. “Are you ok? Your heart’s racing, I can smell the adrenaline from here. Did you find him?”

Stiles wanted nothing more than to sink into Scott’s arm and keep sinking, all the way till his head rested on the floor, but he couldn’t. Exhaustion and fear were gnawing at him but he had to try to play it off. More was at stake here than his sanity. It could be the lives of his entire high school.

“I didn’t find him.” Stiles reassured. “I’m fine.” Scott’s eyes narrowed in disbelief, and Stiles didn’t blame him. Even if Stiles had a talent with lying to werewolves, it didn’t take a werewolf to see that he was _not fine_. It only took one day for the dark circles to return, and if Scott could smell his adrenaline, he was probably back to being jumpy.

“Stiles,” Scott said evenly, “you are obviously not fine. Look, I don’t know if we’re going to find Barrow today, but even if we don’t, you need to go home and get some rest. Kira’s parents invited me over for dinner tonight, but I’ll try to swing by after, ok?”

“You’re starting to sound like Dean.” Stiles grumbled, but part of him was relieved that some portion of this wasn’t in his head. That Scott was noticing. That he wasn’t alone.

Scott smiled. “Maybe cause he and I are both just looking out for you.” he said, and then with a final one-armed hug, he was gone, and Stiles was alone with the hunt.

When Scott vanished, he took his aura of calm and peace with him, and Stiles’ anxieties crashed back into him.

Stiles’ brothers had taught him that the worst thing to lose on a hunt wasn’t your phone or your gun, it was your mind, and Stiles was slowly, surely, walking that line. He knew this, as his sharp eyes swept the school, as his sure feet carried him forward. He knew he was flirting with something dangerous and sooner or later it was going to retaliate. It wasn’t the nemeton, it wasn’t his sacrifice to a magic tree. It was something else. Scott and Allison were fine, Stiles could see that now. He wasn’t. His body was moving of its own accord, walking and talking (and picking up chalk?). And in that dream last night, among the running and the black sky, Stiles had felt something odd, almost like an extra presence. There was something else in his head, something foreign and dangerous, and as soon as Lydia was safe, as his classmates were safe, Stiles would hit every lore book he could get his hands on until he found what was wrong with him (if it let him read.) But at this moment, Stiles had a job to do. He was a hunter, and he was hunting Barrow. And coming up frustratingly blank.

The second snag was his dad. His dad, bless him, had known about the supernatural as long as he had known Claudia Stilinski. Yet he always drew the line at the same spot: evidence over intuition. Stiles knew, as soon as it was mentioned, that the anonymous tip was fake, but it didn’t matter. Stiles had had this argument with his dad hundreds of times, all with the same result. The police were leaving the school. It was up to Stiles and the wolves, now.

“Stiles, be careful.” his dad said as he backed away, taking all hope with him. “I don’t care what John taught you, you can’t face down a mass murderer on your own. For god’s sake, be careful.”

This wasn’t the first time the weight of hundreds had rested on the shoulders of a Winchester. But with company in his head, this was the first time Stiles had felt unworthy to take that weight. As he and Lydia moved through the school, every shadow seemed menacing, every loud noise a trigger, and Stiles could not help but wonder if the next one would be the switch that locked him out of his body. Lydia took notice.

She said nothing, though, until after Allison had crawled out of a window and out of sight, until the only other hunter was out of earshot.

“Allison and Scott are fine.” she said, out of the blue, as Stiles eyed the fire alarm with stupid determination. “Why aren’t you?”

“I wish I knew.” Stiles mumbled. “Or, actually, I wish I didn’t know. But we have bigger problems.” Yep, the fire alarm was the way to go. “I have an idea....”

In retrospect, pulling the fire alarm during an emergency lockdown might not have been the best idea. But it got all of the students out of the school. It got Isaac, Scott, Aiden and Ethan out of the basement, it bought Stiles time to collect himself.

“Stiles, go home.” Lydia said, once it became evident that all anyone could do was wait. And Stiles, uncharacteristically, listened.

“Isaac, go with him.” Lydia ordered, and Stiles shrugged in response to Isaac’s questioning glance.

Stiles was on autopilot as he started his jeep, Isaac settling into the seat next to him. Vaguely, he registered Lydia leaving with Aiden, and Ethan darting off to find Danny as he pulled out of the parking lot.

“Why do you think Lydia wanted me to stay with you?” Isaac asked, fidgeting nervously with his hands, eyeing the twins with something less-than-friendly.

“She’s worried.” Stiles said. “Barrow was supposed to be at the school and he wasn’t, which means he could be anywhere. She doesn’t want anyone to be on their own.” In honesty, Stiles was glad for Lydia’s considerate thinking. With his body moving of it’s own accord now, he didn’t want to be alone, either.

Isaac hummed. “Why would she think he’d go to the school?” he asked incredulously. “You’d think he’d lay low first, what with being a fugitive.”

“I thought he was at the school, too.” Stiles said, and that shut Isaac up. For all the bravado Isaac had shown three weeks ago, it was clear that he was still, in some capacity, afraid of Stiles.

Stiles probably shouldn’t enjoy that as much as he did.

They drove the remainder of the way in silence, and as the silence wore on, Isaac grew more and more agitated. It wasn’t just his hands, now. His feet were tapping an incessant rhythm, and even his eye was twitching.

“What?” Stiles demanded finally, unable to take it anymore.

“You’re not this quiet!” Isaac blurted, then shrunk away as much as possible, afraid of retaliation.

Stiles sighed. “It’s fine. You’re right. I’m just-” _tired. Worried. Anxious. Insane._ “-thinking.”

“About Barrow?”

_About how there’s something in my head. There’s something in my head. There’s something in my head._

“Yeah, about Barrow.”

“Don’t worry, Stiles.” Isaac said in a ghost of a reassurance. “We’ll find him.”

Stiles tried to smile as they pulled up to his driveway. He really did. But too many worries were pulling him down.

Isaac noticed. He frowned, softly, and leaned back, making it clear that we wasn’t getting out of the blue jeep, not until Stiles talked.

“You’re not fine, Stiles.”

“No,” Stiles said slowly, “I’m not.” He’d made a mistake in facing the nemeton alone before. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

“Do you know what’s wrong?” Isaac asked. He gingerly touched his finger to Stiles’ wrist, and watched the black lines seep into his own skin, inching up his arm like blood vessels.

Stiles felt his headache abate slightly, and leaned back and closed his eyes.

“Something’s in my head.” Stiles whispered, and Isaac leaned forward in alarm.

“How do you know?” he demanded.

“How do you know when there’s a splinter in your foot?” Stiles demanded right back, his fists clenching, stress easily turning into anger, but he wasn’t angry at Isaac. “Something doesn’t feel right!”

He was angry, at himself for relaxing, at Dean for not answering, at Cas for breaking the world, at Sam for letting him. But more than that, he was angry at Allison. Angry for making him train with her, angry for her demands, angry for dragging him into a hunting community he didn’t want, angry for shooting him in the chest-

“Stiles!” Isaac shouted. “Calm down!” Alarmed, Isaac undid his seatbelt and clamored out of the car, before running over to Stiles’ side and pulling him out, too. He set Stiles down so his back was against the bottom of the jeep, and waited.

Stiles blinked up at Isaac and took a deep breath, drained and exhausted. It wasn’t real. The anger wasn’t real. The _thing,_ whatever was messing with him, had made up the anger because Allison hadn’t actually shot him in the chest.

“Are you going to be alright?” Isaac asked cautiously, as Stiles regained control of his emotions.

“For now.” Stiles mumbled. There was no use lying to himself, or to Isaac. “Thank you.” He looked up at Isaac, and saw the blue sky behind him.

It had felt so real. The anger had felt so real because the dream had felt so real. The woods around him had been the correct preserve. Lydia's voice had sounded just right. The pain in his chest had been acute and agonizing. The only thing that had been misplaced was the black sky.

Isaac’s hand rested on Stiles’ shoulder and Stiles watched the black lines of his pain snake up Isaac’s wrist. It was the same shade. Stiles shuddered and averted his eyes, looking up again at the blue sky. _This is real._ As long as the sky was blue, it was real.

But maybe the sky in his dream had been blue. Deep enough blue to be black.


	3. Erase/Replace

Ch. 3

Erase/Replace

“Are you sure you’re going to be alright?” Isaac mumbled, head downcast as he draped himself across the doorway to Stiles’ bedroom. Stiles was inside, washing his scraped hands with a washcloth. Apparently collapsing on asphalt does that.

“Yeah.” Stiles softly reassured, focusing on his hands, trying not to notice the guilt radiating off of Isaac in waves. Each time one crashed into him Stiles winced. Lydia didn’t want them to split up, Lydia didn’t want them to be alone... but someone needs to go out and look for Barrow and it can’t be him.

“I feel like I shouldn’t leave you alone.” Isaac said earnestly, trying as much as Stiles not to look the other in the eye, shifting his feet uncomfortably. He didn’t want to be here. It was obvious by his slight frown, his impatient stance, the way his eyes nervously glanced out the window. Stiles made Isaac uncomfortable, and the collapse outside hadn’t helped. It was fine. Stiles didn’t want Isaac there either.

Stiles sighed deeply, trying to shrug off Isaac’s concern. “I told you.” he said with a strained smile, tossing the bloody washcloth to the floor in a movement that made Isaac wince. “I had a bad dream last night. I didn’t get a lot of sleep. School today wasn’t exactly stress-free, and it all came to a head when I got home. That’s it.”

“I thought your bad dreams ended with the door closing.” Isaac said tentatively.

“Not every bad dream is magic induced.” Stiles said, and immediately regretted it, because of course Isaac would know that.

“You said something was in your head.” Isaac whispered, looking up and meeting Stiles’ eyes, and in that moment Stiles’ heart shattered, because yeah, he had said that. Isaac looked at him with a lot of things in that moment. Worry, reproach, anxiety, and for a heartbeat, Stiles was tempted to ask him to stay. There was something in his head. The last thing he wanted was to be alone.

He almost did it. Both of them were frozen in time, Stiles with his hands mid throw, and Isaac draped over the doorway, his mouth parted from the end of his sentence, and it would have been too easy to shatter the silence. But then something else flashed across Isaac’s eyes, some emotion Stiles knew all too well: fear. Isaac looked at him with concern but still managed to have an ounce of fear. Of him.

No, that wouldn’t do. Stiles felt the moment shatter as he turned his back on Isaac, making to get something out of his backpack. He would not tolerate people afraid of him, and he certainly wouldn’t foist his company upon him. Stiles needed to do research and call his family, and to do that, he needed to be himself. His unmasked, hunter self. He couldn’t slip into his natural skin if someone near him was afraid of what he really was.

Stiles turned his back on Isaac, and Isaac seemed to take the hint. “I should go.” he offered, but his voice carried a hint of sadness, and Stiles chastised himself for forgetting that Isaac was one of the most observant out of them all. The quiet ones see and hear everything. “Scott might need me.”

“Yeah.” Stiles said regretfully, and he heard Isaac zip his sweatshirt and collect himself. “If that is where you’re going.”

The noises stopped, and Stiles felt rather than heard Isaac pause, suspended in motion, holding his breath as he waited for the accusation.

“What do you mean?”

“Scott has a dinner date.” Stiles said, and he only sounded a little bit taunting. He turned his head to the right and could barely make out Isaac’s cautious shadow. “He’s off duty. I know there’s more pressing matters at hand, Isaac, but be sure to say hi to Allison for me.”

The shadow shifted into a figure of shame and rage, and made to step forward and demand answers, but Stiles merely chuckled. “Easy.” he said. “Getting murdered isn’t on my to-do list today, but you’re welcome to try.” The shadow receded, and the small part of Stiles that still got scared sometimes breathed in relief.

“How did you-”

“Everyone knows, you idiot.” Stiles interrupted with an eyeroll. “Including Scott. And I don’t think anyone besides him actually cares. I sure don’t. So get out of my house and be done with it.”

Isaac left, in a whirl of motion and without another word, and Stiles felt a brief stab of victory which temporarily numbed the crippling anxiety. Alone in his room, his mask fell, and worry settled over his heart as he reached for his phone.

He called Dean. And this time, Dean picked up.

“Stiles?” Dean asked, “is everything ok?”

“Take a guess.” Stiles spat, pacing furiously. Anger rose to the surface at the instant of Dean’s voice, and it was all Stiles could do to hold it back.

“I’m sorry.” Dean said, and for once he sounded sincere. “I would have called back if I had been able to. A lot’s happened. Do you want the long version or the short version?”

“Short version.” Stiles said, remembering that his brothers’ lives were much more dangerous than his, and for a moment, concern for Dean and Sam drowned out his worry at losing his mind. For a moment.

Dean sighed with heavy anguish. “Cas... went crazy. He had this brilliant idea to open purgatory, and eat the souls. He succeeded, and got drunk on power. He killed Raphael, nearly killed Crowley, and did something to Sam...” Dean’s voice broke off with a choke, and Stiles’ stomach swooped. They just got Sam back. They couldn’t lose him. “He broke the wall.”

“Dean...” Stiles said, unsure how to ask, but filled with a burning need to know. “Is Sam-”

“Sam’s fine.” Dean said coldly, his compose back. “At least, he says he is. Cas, however, is on a power trip. He’s left us and Bobby alone for now, but the rest of the world isn’t too lucky. Cas, see, he’s going around pretending to be God. What’s scary is, he has enough power to back it up.”

Stiles gulped. “Do you think he’ll come here?”

“Hard to say.” Dean said. “I doubt it, but if he does, call me, I might be able to talk some sense into him. Listen, Sam, Bobby, Crowley and I have a plan-”

“-Crowley?” Stiles questioned.

“-and we’re implementing it tonight, so I need to go on radio silence now. But I listened to your voicemail.”

“And?” Stiles prompted, feeling hope and dread simultaneously.

“And kid, I think you just need to get some sleep. We live a hard life. Sometimes it takes its toll.”

“Dean, there’s something in my head!” Stiles shrieked, angry and alarmed and anxious all at once. Panic, that’s what it was. It was panic, and his breath was coming shorter, and his hand was beginning to shake, and he had to be right, Dean had to see that. There was something in his head. There had to be.

“We’ve all had something in our heads!” Dean roared back, and he must have brushed over a lot because he sounded far too ragged. “Sam had one in his head _three days ago_ before Cas broke it down and broke the world and went insane-”

“I’m going insane!” Stiles all-but-whaled into the phone, and his other hand was shaking. Stiles analyzed the pair with a detached fascination as he listened to Dean’s response.

“Well I hate to break it to you, Stiles!” Dean said, “But I’m a little more concerned about the six-foot-tall walking _nuclear weapon_. Do you want the world to end?”

“I want to be in my right mind!” Stiles yelled, sinking to his knees, the oncoming panic attack being too much for his legs to handle, and Lydia was right, he shouldn’t have been left alone-

“You are in your right mind!” Dean shouted back, but Stiles didn’t register it. He was too busy trying to lengthen his rapidly decreasing breaths-

“Stiles!” Dean yelled, but Stiles didn’t hear, his hand was fisting into his blankets as he kneeled by his bed, scrambling for purchase as he waited for the wave of breathlessness to hit him-

“Stiles!” Dean shouted again, and now there was a touch of annoyance coloring his tone, but Stiles couldn’t be bothered, his toes were curling as he struggled to clamor to his feet-

“Stiles!” Dean roared. “Answer me!” and he sounded full-on panicked now, gone was the anger, and Stiles struggled to reach the phone and assure Dean that everything was alright but he couldn’t seem to find the right words, for once he didn’t have any words-

“Stiles!” A new voice said, strong and powerful and close, and Stiles looked up to see Lydia, redheaded goddess, towering over him with cold fury and a halo of authority as invisible hands grasped his shoulders and hauled him to his feet and kept him there.

“Stiles!” Lydia said, softer now, more worried, as she hurriedly approached him and cupped his cheek, looking into his eyes. He tried to look into hers but they swam, and Stiles should be more focused on breathing anyway, or maybe talking to Dean-

“Stiles!” A new voice thundered, Aiden, loud, close, behind his ear, and Stiles flinched as it echoed around his skull, well,everything was echoing and swimming, and Stiles felt his shoulders shake as some strong force rattled him down to his bones-

-He wakes up on his bed, Lydia leaning over him as she pats his forehead with a damp washcloth. Aiden was nowhere to be seen.

“Lydia...’ he began, but she holds up a hand, stopping him.

“You’ve been out for 20 minutes.” Lydia said, and a chill goes through him because that’s how long he was out last time. “I told Dean you were fine and hung up on him. I know there’s something you’re not telling me, but if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. When you’re feeling up to it, we can study physics.”

Stiles really did admire her professionalism. And he absolutely did not want to talk about it. But he didn’t want to study physics either.

Barrow was still out there, and Stiles had to do something about it. So, while Lydia poured over her textbook, or at least pretended to, Stiles went to work, clipping newspaper articles, pages of lore, and just about anything he could find to his wall. Eventually, Lydia gave up trying to study and watched him work, mumbling all the while that she was so sure Barrow had been at the school. She sounded confused, and Stiles was too. Lydia was not one to get these things wrong. But they had searched the entire building top to bottom and-

-wait a minute.

Stiles blacked out. Just as he was about to start on the Science wing.

They never searched the whole school, did they.

“Get up.” Stiles said, nudging Lydia off his bed, his alarm threatening to bubble to the surface. “Get up, we’re going to the school.”

 

“Where do we start?” Lydia asked as they pulled up to the empty, slightly desolate building, and Stiles knew the answer right away.

“The Science wing.”

 

“They’re atomic numbers.” Lydia said, drifting towards the chalkboard, after the horrific discovery that Barrow had been at the school, and had used ammonia to cover his scent. It was almost as horrifying as the realization that someone would have given him a key to the chemistry closet.

And someone had left him a message.

Stiles’ fingers twitched as he gazed at the three chalk-written numbers and remembered the chalk dusting his fingers hours earlier. After coming from the science hallway.

_Don’t be ridiculous. It wasn’t you._

“But this doesn’t make any sense...” Lydia kept saying, her hand reaching for the chalk, and part of Stiles wanted to scream for her not to, it might be contagious, the other part of him knew that was insane.

Lydia wrote the K, and the I, and the Ra, and Stiles’ heart plummeted through the floor. He knew Kira was hiding something.

Well now someone else knew it too.

“Scott.” Stiles said after a minute, after staring at the message for a minute, because that was all he and Lydia could do. “Scott went to- Kira is- oh my god, we need to go.”

They drove at least 20 miles over the speed limit, but it turned out not to matter. They found Scott passed out in the street, and Stiles’ dread was only matched by Lydia’s discomfort, and something finally clicked for Stiles.

“Scream, Lydia.” he said, and she did, and it didn’t take long to figure out where Barrow had taken Kira. In fact, the more Stiles thought about it, the more he was amazed at how quickly he came to that conclusion. It was like the answer had just dropped into his head. But that wasn’t on his mind as he once again drove like a maniac towards the power plant, and once he got there, he fumbled for the only weapon at his disposal. A metal bat. Figures.

“What happened to your guns?” Lydia asked incredulously, bristling at the idea of being left behind.

“I can’t keep them in the car!” he said. “What if I get pulled over?” He ran in without a second thought, going the opposite way Scott went, dodging fences and grids and way too many tempting-looking levers. Eventually he figured out that the layout of this part of the warehouse was one big giant room, and, following the sound of crackling electricity and Kira’s terrified voice, Stiles positioned himself so he was opposite Scott as he approached Barrow. Hiding behind a metal grate, Stiles listened as Barrow rambled on about some old movie, and glowing eyes, and what Kira really was. Stiles was also curious. But even he was above electrocuting for answers. Just as Stiles was about to step in, A-Rod style, Scott emerged, from who-the-hell-knows where, and Stiles stayed behind the grate as he waited for things to get ugly.

Barrow was saying something odd, then, something that sounded like he was about to do something stupid and would not listen to reason, and Stiles was beginning to grow alarmed. He couldn’t see anything except cold metal and gray fuse boxes from his vantage point, and so he was about to move, to fight or just be able to see, but then something tugged at his hands.

“What the-” Stiles began, looking down, but there was nothing there. It happened again. His bat. Something was tugging on his bat. Stiles looked up and saw a fuse box directly across from him, switched on and somehow magnetized. Alarmed, Stiles tried to drop the bat, but his hands wouldn’t move. With a grunt, Stiles tried again, but if anything, his grip only seemed to tighten. He tried wiggling one of his fingers. Nothing. He tried moving his toes. Nothing.

Stiles tried to get up, emerge from his crouched position, but his legs were locked and his body was frozen. He couldn’t move. He tried to open his mouth, scream for Scott, but other than a click in his jaw, his mouth wouldn’t move. Stiles tried to sense any tightening in his chest, any shortness of breath, but there was nothing. His breathing was fine. His mind was clear. He could still hear Barrow rambling behind him. But his body wouldn’t move. It was just like sleep paralysis.

Or like something else was taking control.

Stiles felt a tug on his bat again, stronger this time, and before he knew it, his body was moving. Not towards Scott, not towards conflict and salvation, but away, pitching forward towards the fuse box at the end of the line, the small gray box that was the flyswatter, and he was the fly-

-Stiles hit the box with a thud, his bat glued to the surface, his hands pinning him to the grid against his will. Barrow was still talking, the egomaniac, and Stiles, having successfully avoided electrocution, replaced his fear and confusion and giant WHAT THE HELL with hope that Scott would find him when this was over, could probably smell his fear...

But then there was a roar, a great roar, and the sound of something heavy and Scott-like being shoved into metal, and Kira was shrieking and begging and Barrow was rambling like the madman he was and the buzzing of electricity was only getting louder as it chaffed and smacked against metal as it approached its victim, and Stiles could only shut his eyes and listen as Kira and Scott simultaneously let out one last horrified plea, and there was the horrible sound of electricity meeting flesh, and suddenly. Suddenly there was a bright, white light that Stiles saw even through his eyelids, and it burned through him hot and heavy like fire, and every one of his muscles sprang alight with pain, and every one of his bones nearly shattered with the wave of energy that rolled through him, and his skin seared with the fury of it, and somewhere in a back corner of his mind, some hidden place with a terrible draft, some long-forgotten nook overshadowed by the massive sensation, a dark clot of _something_ shivered with joy and broke free, seeping into-


	4. Low

Ch. 4

Low

 

“-and I don’t even know where you left your bat, Stiles, but that is the last time you are leaving me behind in the car while you and Scott go screw up everything-”

Stiles opened his eyes with a snap and jerked the wheel of his jeep violently, sending it careening into the other (thankfully empty) lane before his wits crashed back into him and he jerked the car back, just as violently.

Lydia let out a small shriek and hit him on the arm, while Stiles, breathing heavily, looked frantically around to gauge his surroundings. He was driving. Okay. He was driving on a dark road, dark because it was still night. It was the road away from the electrical plant, and he and Lydia were the only two in the car, and the only car on the street. The lights of his jeep illuminated the path ahead in an eerie light that made Stiles shudder.

He had blacked out. Again. And instead of laying around passed out or whatever, he had been... driving?

The thought chilled Stiles to the bone. If he wasn’t sure before, he definitely was now. Something was in his head.

“Lydia...” Stiles began, his voice croaking strangely. “What time is it?”

Lydia shot him a worrying look. “It’s just after midnight, Stiles.” she said a little too kindly. “Same as it was when you asked me two minutes ago.”

Stiles shivered.

“Do you want to explain what just happened?” Lydia asked softly, her face still a little white from the scare, her concerned look only illuminated with the passing street lamps.

“I....” Stiles began, and he was about to launch into a tirade of black sky and panic attacks,and chalked fingers and splinters, but something held him back. It would have been very easy. He wanted to tell Lydia, he was actually desperate to tell Lydia, if nothing else so he wouldn’t be alone while he went insane, but something held him back. No, something actually held him back. Stiles actually felt his tongue curl into the back of his mouth, a warning.

The action sent a jolt of energy through Stiles’ body, and fear pumped through him like blood. There was something in his head, and it was listening. And warning him, very literally, to hold his tongue.

“I thought I saw a deer.” Stiles said in a rush. “Swerved to avoid it.” He winced at how fake and transparent it sounded, how palpable his fear was, but if Lydia noticed, she chose not to comment.

Even with his eyes on the road, Stiles could see Lydia looking at him, analyzing him with those careful, big eyes. “You’re tired.” she said finally. “Why don’t we change drivers.”

Stiles nodded because that was an excellent idea. He shouldn’t be driving anyway, what with the frequent blackouts, even if he could apparently drive during them. Not to mention, he had no idea where they were going.

Stiles pulled over to the side of the road next to a streetlamp oozing orange light, and clamored out of the jeep eagerly. Next to him, Lydia’s descent was much more elegant, and within a minute they were in each other's places. Stiles took a moment to admire how Lydia’s orange hair blended perfectly with the amber light around them, and then they were on their way.

Stiles wasn’t very surprised when they pulled up at the sheriff’s station. Nor was he surprised that at this hour, the parking lot was full and all the lights were on. Something big must have gone down. And it had probably involved him. But what?

Lydia parked the car and killed the ignition, but she made no move to get out. Taking a deep breath, like she was steeling herself to do something, Lydia turned and asked “What do you remember?” in a voice that was as quick as it was fearful.

“Uh...” Stiles said, and he tried to work around the giant, gaping hole in his memory. They were hunting down Barrow.... He told Lydia to stay in the car.... He grabbed his bat and ran inside.... And then what?

“I ran inside after Scott.” Stiles said, “And we split up.” He didn’t actually remember that part, but it felt true. “I didn’t find anything, you probably know the rest.”

“Do you?” Lydia challenged, and it was scary how on the nose she was, how close to the truth. “Surely you must remember how Barrow was so hysterical he accidentally electrocuted himself next to a fuse box, creating a massive explosion that somehow generated its own feedback loop and saved Scott, Kira, and you from any damage, and then the three of you ran outside to wait for the police.”

“Yep. I remember that.” Stiles said with his usual sarcastic cheer, but it sounded sour on his tongue.

“That’d be a neat trick.” Lydia said acerbically, and Stiles felt his false smile melt off his face. “Cause that’s our cover story. The one _you_ came up with, by the way.”

Stiles twitched in alarm and a barely contained scream.

“So what really happened?”

Lydia scowled. “I don’t know. All I know is that you and Scott ran in, and you, Scott and Kira ran out, after decimating the plant with enough force to blackout the entire city. The only people who know what really happened are you, Scott, and Kira. And Scott’s not telling me anything.”

Stiles sighed, and pressed his forehead against the window, watching the brightly lit station with trepidation. “I can’t help you with that. You realize that, right?”

“I realize.” Lydia said evenly. “Even if you don’t say anything, Stiles, it’s fairly obvious something’s going on with you. I don’t know if it has to do with Sam and Dean or whatever,but when you feel like sharing, we’ll be here.” Stiles looked over at Lydia with amazement as she smoothly removed the key from the ignition and handed it to him, before rifling through her purse and removing a large silver flashlight.

 _Huh._ Stiles thought, his brow furrowing. _That’s odd, I wonder why she needs that._

It shouldn’t have bothered Stiles that much. In their line of work, flashlights were more than a necessity, they were a way of life. But something was bothering Stiles, some stray idea poking around the back of his head. He glanced from Lydia to the brightly lit sheriff’s station. It didn’t make sense why Lydia would need the flashlight for ten feet of walking up to a brightly lit building.

And then it hit him.

“Did you... did you say city-wide blackout?” Stiles asked tentatively, straightening up from his slouching position against the door.

“Yeah.” Lydia said without missing a beat, oblivious to him as she continued to rifle through her purse. “I thought I bought more batteries.... Anyway, whatever the hell you two did destroyed the entire power grid. Gone. Kaput. Won’t be up for a few days at least.”

Stiles frowned. “So, street lamps, government buildings, even the backup generators connected to the grid...”

“Are all out.” Lydia finished. “Haven’t you been able to tell? All the street lamps were dark, remember? That’s why you thought you saw a deer. And look at how many officers are here.” She gestured to the full parking lot. “Didn’t you think it odd that all the lights were off.” She pointed at the brightly lit building in front of them.

Stiles remembered the amber street light they had pulled up against to change drivers, the way it blended perfectly with Lydia’s hair.

“I guess not.” he said tonelessly. Lydia rolled her eyes and clambered out of the car. “Hey, you go on ahead, I’ll be a minute.”

“Stiles, we have to give statements to the police.” Lydia said gently. “This isn’t optional. We’re already running late as it is.”

“Really?” Stiles asked, his eyes drifting away from Lydia’s patronizing glare to his clasped hands. “What time is it?”

“Just after midnight.” Lydia said. “Same as when you asked five minutes ago.”

“Huh.” Stiles said. He casually raised his thumb.

_One._

Lydia zeroed in on the movement with beady eyes. Her lips parted and her shoulders dropped with something too similar to pity. “You think you’re dreaming.” she said softly. “Oh, Stiles...”

Stiles nodded, and lifted his index finger.

_Two._

“Look at the station.” Stiles said. “All the lights are on.”

_Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight._

“Look again.” Lydia said urgently. “They’re not, I promise. You’re tired. You’re imagining things.”

Stiles glanced up from his hands. The station was practically oozing light.

_Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen._

“Sorry, Lydia.” Stiles said with forced nonchalance as they both gaped at his warped hands. “This is definitely a dream.”

 

“Mr. Stilinski!”

Stiles’ eyes flew open to utter darkness. Well, that wasn’t true, though the furious face of Agent McCall was certainly up there on all things dark-and-sinister.

“Wha-what?” Stiles asked, looking around to find himself on a couch next to Lydia, Scott, and Kira in his dad’s office, said dad glaring at him with arms crossed. The room was absent of its normal pale yellow light, instead it was lit by harsh blue lamps.

_Right. City-wide blackout._

“Would you like to give your version of the events from earlier tonight?” Agent McCall asked patronizingly from where he stood obnoxiously against the sheriff’s desk. “Or are you going to fall asleep on us again?”

Stiles shrugged. “I mean, it’s pretty late.” he said, glancing at his watch. 12:01, just after midnight. “But sure, yeah.” Stiles leaned forward on his elbows and purposefully stroked his chin once, a motion he had seen Sam do more than once to buy himself time when buying himself time. Glancing at Scott, who was frowning at him concernedly, Lydia, who was frowning, and Kira, who just looked confused, Stiles turned back to Agent McCall with a lazy grin as hollow as his heart. “My version, yeah. Well, after we figured out where Barrow was going to take Kira, Scott, Lydia and I split up. Faster, you know, since Scott’s got his bike, which I’m sure you’re thrilled about him riding-”

Scott kicked him in the shin.

“Anyway,” Stiles continued, not before glaring at his best friend, “We ended up getting there at the same time. Scott ran in first, what with his hero complex and all-”

“Stiles.” his dad said warningly.

“-and I grabbed my bat, which I have for chasing away hooligans of course, and went after him. I told Lydia to stay in the car, because she didn’t have exceptional muscle mass or a weapon, and someone had to make sure Kira was ok in case something happened to Scott and I trying to get her out. Scott and I split up again, took opposite ends of the main floor, and Scott got lucky. My side was empty, and by the time I got there....” Stiles trailed off meaningfully, daring Agent McCall to finish the sentence.

“Barrow had already electrocuted himself.”

“Exactly!” Stiles exclaimed, clapping his hands for effect. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“Very well.” Agent McCall said with a huff, turning away from his clear least favorite to Scott and Kira. “And what were you two doing at her house?”

“Eating sushi...”

 

“Stiles.” Scott said as they exited the station, Lydia staying behind with Kira to give her a ride home. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, Scott, I’m fine.” Stiles said with a smile, trying not to think about orange street lights that looked too real and the fact that the last thing he remembered was running into the treatment plant.

It was exactly like Lydia had said The entire power grid was gone, and no one knew how it had happened, except for Stiles, Scott, and Kira. But Stiles didn’t remember anything. And Lydia hadn’t actually said that.

“You sure?” Scott asked. “Cause where the hell did you go?” One minute you were running into the power plant after me, the next you’re outside with the police.”

Stiles shrugged. “I got lost? That place was big, man.”

Scott grasped either one of Stiles’ shoulders and looked into his eyes with deep worry. “Stiles, it took the police twenty minutes to get there. After I got Kira out, I spent that entire time _looking for you_. I looked for you for _twenty minutes_ , and found nothing, and then Lydia texts me that you’re outside spinning some cover story to the cops without anyone seeing you walk out. Stiles, what the hell happened?”

 _No, no._ “I could ask you the same question!” Stiles snapped, shoving Scott’s hands off of his shoulders, because no, he would not think about this now. “How the hell would Barrow electrocute himself and blow out the power grid of an entire town? He was one guy! What the hell actually happened to him?”

“That was your story!” Scott shot back. “Your idea! And now you’re acting like you don’t remember coming up with it! If you can find a cover for it, you must know what happened!”

“Ok, so maybe I do remember!” Stiles said. “Tell me, Scott, what’s Kira hiding?”

It was just a hunch. Just some pieces not fitting together, but Stiles was right on the money, cause Scott’s face shut down. Gone was any remorse or worry and replacing it was awe and fear.

“I don’t know....” Scott mumbled, avoiding Stiles’ searching eyes. “But you saw it, Stiles. The way the electricity moved around her... what human can do that?”

 

What human could exit a power-fluctuating power plant unharmed and without an alpha werewolf or an entire police force noticing, and then craft an artful cover story, drive to a station 1 mile away all while keeping up conversation with his passenger and then sit attentively for 30 minutes of statements all while supposedly unconscious? Apparently Stiles.

It was 1 a.m by the time Stiles flopped into bed, and as he stared at the blank ceiling, he knew he had two options: one, freak out about whatever the hell was wrong with him; two: research the hell out of what Kira really was. He picked the second option.

School the following morning was a blur. Classes passed by incoherently as Stiles spent his time buried in one lore book or another, from several different mythologies around the world.

By lunch he had the answer. Kira was a kitsune. It made sense, really. Almost every single supernatural creature was vulnerable to electricity in some way or another. The only one that wasn’t was a Japanese creature said to live for hundreds of years, able to manipulate electricity at its will and create fox fire. Which, yeah, had the power capacity to, let’s say, blow out the power grid of a whole town.

Poor Scott. Why his friend always falls for the pretty girls with deadly secrets, Stiles will never know.

Of course, with the Kira conundrum out of the way, Stiles now had 100% of his brain to freak out about whatever the hell was happening to him. Starting with the new key on his keyring.

 

Stiles’ phone rang at 5 p.m.

“Sam?”

“Ok, don’t freak out.” Sam said, sounding very much like he was freaking out. “Cas is dead.”

Stiles bolted upright on his bed. “WHAT?”

“And Bobby’s house burned down.” Sam continued, his voice getting noticeably stressed. “But it’s ok, Bobby’s fine, we’re all fine!”

“Except Cas!”

“Cas wasn’t fine for longer than any of us knew!” Sam said sternly, regretfully. “But unfortunately, that isn’t the worst of it.”

“Cas is dead and it gets WORSE?”

“He may not be dead!” Sam said. “I mean, yeah, he probably is, but Dean’s still holding on to his coat, it’s kinda adorable actually-”

“SAM!” Stiles demanded. “Why is Cas dead??”

“Right, sorry.” Sam said with a pained huff. “Do you want the long story or the short story?”

“Short story.”

“Okay.” Sam said with a deep sigh. “You know how we keep saying we aren’t going to start another apocalypse? This one may not actually be our fault...”

Fifteen minutes later, Stiles hangs up the phone in a daze.

 _They probably won’t come to Beacon Hills_. Sam had said. _The nemeton repels them too much._

Well yay.

 _Dean’s in a bit of shock._ Sam had said. _Bobby, too. I seem to be the only one holding it together, ironic, considering._

Scott texts him about breaking into the evidence locker. At this point, Stiles is so unfazed, he agrees without a second thought.

 _I’m not sure how long this bought of sanity is going to last._ Sam had said. _Not long, I don’t think. We don’t usually get that lucky._

Damn right. Stiles thought. What is it with Winchesters and losing their minds?

 _I know you were talking with Dean about something._ Sam had said. _Something serious going on back in Beacon Hills. He never told me, what with everything that has been going on. But since he’s a little out of it now, do you want to talk to me?_

Out of it. That was a good term for Stiles as he tossed his key ring up and down, staring at the magically appearing key, wondering when he had put it there. Which blackout had it been?

 _I know, I know, I’m not as good with the advice stuff as Dean._ Sam had said. _I can’t believe I’m actually saying that. But the point stands. I know you might not want to talk about it right now, and that’s ok. But if you have any questions about the leviathans,_

Don’t say it.

_Or you think something’s wrong with Beacon Hills,_

Don’t say it.

_Or you’re ready to talk about whatever’s bothering you,_

Don’t say it.

_Or even just because,_

Do not say it.

_I’m here for you. I’m only a phone call away._

Oh really?

Stiles had stilled at that, holding Sam in suspense among the static.  
“Thank you, Sam, but I’m alright. Great, actually. The best I’ve been in a long time.”


End file.
